Hospital Massacre (1981)

Directed by Boaz Davidson [Other horror films: N/A]

Known in some parts as X-Ray, Hospital Massacre is a serviceable slasher. It does have a bit of a cheap feel, but it also hits most of the notes well enough. I don’t think it’s anywhere near one of the greats, and on the whole, might lean more toward below average, but if you’re a fan of slasher films, it’s at least worth one whirl.

I’ve seen this either once or twice, and I enjoyed it well enough. In part, that’s due to it combining the location of a hospital (as Halloween II and Visiting Hours did) with the holiday of St. Valentine’s Day (My Bloody Valentine). This movie doesn’t feel quite as good as Halloween II or My Bloody Valentine, of course, but it’s at least better than Visiting Hours.

One problem I have with this film is just how aggravating the focal plot is. A woman (Barbi Benton) goes into a hospital to pick up some test results, but a mysterious individual switches the results out, causing the doctors to think that she’s deathly ill. She has no symptoms, but they effectively keep her there against her will, refuse to disclose what they believe is wrong with her, and act as though she’s having seizures when she becomes understandably annoyed.

It’s almost like Bedlam, actually, only nowhere near as dramatic or aggravating, but even so, the fact that none of the doctors even came close to disclosing the results of her tests just bugged the hell out of me. Even if you’re sick, hospitals can’t force you to stay; you can leave without the physician’s approval (the exception, I imagine, being rather contagious diseases). But apparently she didn’t get those rights, and it just bugged me something awful.

Naturally, I appreciate how this movie clearly shows that it’s the good ole’ days. Not only does a character smoke in the hallway of a hospital, but she also smokes in a hospital room as a patient. Never once is she asked to put the cigarette out, and it just goes to show that it really was a different time. Oh, and they were also fumigating a floor, but still had patients on the floor beneath, which also felt rather odd.

Another thing that I sort of liked, while rather unrealistic, was the setting. Being a horror film, the hospital was laughably empty. A woman could go running and screaming down a couple of hallways, and no doctors, nurses, patients, or other administrators seemed to be nearby to ascertain what the nature of her displeasure was. I get it – a lot of slasher movies do this – but it just felt ridiculous. Still, horror films set almost entirely in hospitals, which are creepy places to be even in the best of health, have a charm to them.

This might just be me, but another ridiculous aspect was how every character was treated as a suspect. There’s the ex-husband, who has been playing with a switchblade all day, who is mysteriously missing when Benton’s character calls him. There’s a janitor leering creepily at her. There’s a doctor with some scaples in his drawer, and it’s just all so silly and over-dramatic.

Get this: the killer has heavy breathing, which has been demonstrated throughout the film. When one of the doctors is looking through records, and he hears a noise, using his flashlight, he looks around the dark room (this, on a side-note, is one of the darkest hospitals I’ve seen, and I’ve seen The Power). It’s quiet, until he turns around and – all of the sudden – there’s heavy breathing and a hatchet to his head. Again, while the kill was okay, it just felt silly.

In fact, I’ll give the film credit for decent kills overall, even the final one, which had okay effects. None of the kills are really Tom Savini level, but there’s the hatchet to the head, someone gets drowned in chemicals (reminding me a little of the boiling water in My Bloody Valentine), another gets had with an electric orthopedic saw. There’s a bit of blood splatter, but it’s never really gory. Even so, the kills weren’t half bad.

To be honest, I can’t say any of the performances wowed me. Barbi Benton made for an okay lead, but I never felt that strongly one way or the other about her. Jon Van Ness (Tourist Trap) wasn’t really that important, Charles Lucia (Syngenor) was sort of generic, Jimmy Stathis (The Black Room) virtually pointless. I’ll give you that John Warner Williams has a presence to him, and Bill Errigo (who apparently died in 1988 at the age of 37) could wear a bowtie with the best of them, but otherwise, the cast was just okay.

In the right situation, I think that Hospital Massacre (or X-Ray, if you prefer) would make for a fine viewing. I don’t think it’s special, but I also don’t think it’s that harmful. A bit of the plot set-up does annoy me, but I can also admit that if I were in a different mood, this might come across as a better movie.

For the time being, though, I think I’ll rate it just a bit below average. It’s not bad, but a bit weak in it’s execution, and when you compare it to other slashers from around the same time, I don’t know if it would really stand out that well.

6.5/10